Palm OS To Run On Linux

mwk88 writes "PalmSource today announced it is acquiring China Mobile Soft, a leading Chinese mobile phone software company, and will offer future versions of Palm OS Cobalt running on Linux. Full disclosure: I am a PalmSource employee -- but also a Slashdot reader, and would like to get some feedback. You can find more detail in this letter to the Linux community." NewsForge (also part of OSTG) has a textified (non-PDF), linked version of the letter.

Comments

best of both worlds

[RenHoek]

I think it's a nice idea.. Get the best of both worlds.. Look at the Macintosh.. they got tons of software added to their platform by adopting BSD as their OS.

Symbiosis

[thrill12]

If I read this properly - what Palmsource actually plans is a symbiosis between Linux and Palm-OS - while keeping Palm-OS proprietary and closed-source software.
It shows a few similarities with Mac-OS X imho - you can run Linux-software AND Palm software on the same platform.

Sharp can't help the problem

[Bruce Perens]

One of the biggest issues is the sales channel. Palm has a fully-developed sales channel and is already an entrenched product. Sharp never got there.

Bruce

What about the BeOS sourcecode then?

[motown]

Hmmm...

If I recall correctly, PalmSource bought the BeOS sourcecode after it had failed in the marketplace.

Everyone expected PalmSource to use the BeOS code as a basis to built another mobile OS on.

Now that PalmSource has announced that they would be running future versions of PalmOS on top of Linux, that previous plan has apparently been axed.

Well, in that case I do have a great proposal for PalmSource if they if they are prepared to give something back to the Open Source community: by releasing the BeOS sourcecode under the GPL or any another acceptable OSI-compliant license.

I'll tell you this, mwk88: if PalmSource were to release the BeOS sourcecode, they would create a tremendous amount of goodwill throughout the entire OSS/FS community, even among many of us that do't use BeOS. And with that, you'd be attracting many talented volunteers who are prepared to help customize and optimize Linux for PalmOS. I can't think of any other use that PalmSource would have for BeOS, now that they're switching to a Linux-based platform.

Please do this, PalmSource. If you do, I'm sure you'll become the next cool open-source friendly company idolized on Slashdot (sorry, Novell ;) ).